Patent GB-190416401-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in Circular Knitting Machines.
Inventor: PAXTON JOHN BARTON
Filed: 1904-07-25
Granted: 1905-07-25
Abstract: 16,401. Paxton, J. B., and O'Neill, E. T. July 25. Circular knitting- machines.- Relates to an automatic b o s i e r y-knitting machine in which a measuring-chain 142, Figs. 2 and 4, on the take - up roller controls, partly directly, partly through a pattern chain 77 (normally at rest), the usual operations, including ankle-fashioning and splicing. The invention further describes a special form of instep needle cam. The first lug 143, Fig. 4, of the chain 142, comes into action after the leg is knitted, and starts the chain 77, which carries a lug 347 determining the commencement of shorter stitches for the ankle. The lug 144 of the chain 142 changes the motion of the needle cylinder or cams from rotary to oscillatory, throws out the instep needles, and starts the chain 77 again. The lug 310 of the latter eventually sets the picker for the widening operation, and a lug 313 locks the picker, changes the motion to rotary, and stops its own chain 77. After the foot is knitted, lugs 148, 149 on the chain 142 act analogously to the lugs 143, 144, and, by the help of corresponding lugs on the pattern chain, form the toe. The machine can then be stopped automatically if required. The work-roller 170, Fig. 2, hiving a clip 171 for the end of the work is carried on a take-up shaft 140, driven by a band 146, Fig. 4, and journalled in a pivoted frame 133 balanced by an adjustable counterweight. A ratchet with two detents and a hand lifting-device normally prevents backward movement. A loose sprocket driven by a spring pawl carries the chain 142. The chain 77 is carried by a sprocket on a ratohet-driven shaft 75, Figs. 4, 7, and 9, on which is a sleeve 71 driven by a mutilated ratchet 72. The blank part 73 has a similar blank 81 adjacent to it and a blank 79 opposite. The ratchets 80, 72 can be driven by side-by-side pawls 103, 101 normally upheld by levers 115, 105, respectively. The pawl 101 is dropped by a shaft 106 which carries the arm 105 and a jointed arm supported by an upper bell crank connected to a bell crank 183, Fig. 4, pushed aside by the lug 143 of the chain 142. When the sleeve 71 is first moved, two teeth at a time by the ratchet 72, a cam 130, Fig. 9, drops the arm 115, Fig. 7, and pawl 103 and allows the shaft 75 and and pattern chain 77 to be progressed until the blank 79 on the ratchet 72 comes uppermost, when a cam similar to the cam 130 lifts the pawl 103. Previously to this, a lug of the pattern chain, acting on an arm, rocks the shaft 106 and arm 105 and raises the pawl 101 to the point at which it can only drive through the space of one tooth, and the ratchet 72 accordingly comes to rest with the blank 79 uppermost. The shortening of the ankle stitches is effected by raising the needle cylinder, which is held up by a plate 325, Fig. 10, attached to a plunger 322 and pintled on the eccentric shaft 330 of two hanging eccentric-rods. The shaft 330 carries a lever knocked up by a lug 347 on the chain 77. To effect the chain-motion and to lengthen the loops before the heel is started, a lug 144 on the chain 142 starts the pattern chain as before. The chain then proceeds during rather less than half a revolution of the sleen 71, Figs. 9 and 7, (i.e., till the blank 81 comes uppermost), and causes a cam 74 to move a lever connected to a horizontal bell crank, the hub 385, Fig. 10, of which is formed as a cam to slide on a roller 390, depress the needle-cylinder bracket 325, and lengthen the loops. The height of the needle cylinder can also be adjusted by turning the tapped plate 375, fitted with a detent 378, and also by altering the points of suspension of the hanging eccentric-rods. The sleeve 71, Fig. 9, also carries a change-motion clutch cam 70, which rocks a lever 66, Fig. 2, and shifts a clutch 56, feathered on a shaft 5, to the left. The thrust of the clutch is resisted by a spring 53 bearing on the gear-wheel 49. The reciprocating motion is derived from a toothed sector 40, having a pin and slide block 42 engaging with a vertical slot in a yoke 25, which itself slides horizontally on rods 29 and is reciprocated by an engaging-stud on the gear-wheel 20. The latter also carries an adjustable pivoted triangular cam 82, Figs. 2 and 7, which strikes a pivoted lever 92 and drives pawls 101, 103. The lever 66, Fig. 2, in moving also lifts a lever 249, and the setting-cams 212, 213 for rotating the instep-needle cam finger 200, Fig. 18, (shown end-on). The finger is mounted on a spring plunger 201 with arms 209, 210 which engage with vertically-sliding cams 212, 213, causing the finger 200 simultaneously to rock and ride up inclines 204 or 205 to reach the long butts of the instep needles, and remove them. The cams 212, 213 move together with a sliding block 217 which has an arm 236 sliding between springs on a rod 225. The block 217 is engaged in either position by a spring-pressed, pivoted locking- plate 260, Fig. 2, and released by a cam on the needle cylinder. After the iustep needles are removed from action, the picker arm, which is mounted on a swinging socket on a rod 278, Fig. 12, and provided with a tail 274<a> held down against a spring by a lever 284, a stud 290 on which is caught in the tail-hook 295 of a lever 293, engages with and raises a needle at every reciprocation. The widening is effected at a point determined by the chain 77, which has been meanwhile going on, the ratchet 72 having come to rest before completing the half-revolution necessary to stop the chain 77. A lug 310, Fig. 4, on the latter, by rocking an arm 300, drives a pivoted cam 305 on the upper end into the path of a pin 292, Figs. 4 and 12, on the lever 293, releasing the lever 284 and allowing the picker to rise on its spring to the point at which it can lower two needles at each swing by sliding down the helical incline 273. Finally, a lug 313 on the chain operates a linkage 317, 318, Fig. 4, and inserts a cam 315 in the path of a pin thus lifting the lever 284 into the hook 295 and locking the picker. The chain 77 is again arrested by the engagement of the lever 317 with an arm on the shaft 106. The latter rocks, and the jointed arm thereon allows of the pawl 101 being lowered to complete the second half-revolution of the ratchet 72. Splicing-mechanism of suitable construction is brought into action for thickening the heels &c. by a linkage worked by the cam 74 on the sleeve 71. The belt-shifting mechanism comprises a slide rod 410 provided with a spring 413 tending to move to the right-hand side of Fig. 2 and prevented from doing so by an S-shaped link forming a toggle-joint with an arm on the inner end of the starting lever 422. To shift the belt to the loose pulley, a special link on the pattern chain can rock a lever 432, the right-hand end of which encounters a lever 435 adapted to rock a looselymounted, overhanging, bifurcated lever by which the toggle mechanism is pressed past the dead centre to allow the spring 413 to shift the belt fork.